Albion Clean Up for Earth Day had about two dozen people come out.
The first spot tackled was behind Family Fare. The group that did this picking up is called Friends of Albion’s Animals. Read a story about them here: https://albionmich.net/friends_of_albions_animals/
There are several ways you can help the Friends of Albion’s Animals with “virtually volunteering.” One is to save your bottles and cans for them. Another is to save your grocery store slips for them. You can also use the Amazon purchase technique of visiting the Smile page first and vote for Friends of Albion’s Animals or FOAA. Learn how to do all this virtual volunteering on their Facebook page located here:
Another group that was helping nearby was the Play Right Sports Group. We’ll include more about them and their work soon.
The next area that was tackled was between the Shell station and the party store on Michigan Ave, kitty-corner to the post office. There used to be a Chinese restaurant there. A neighbor of this spot did all of this work single-handedly.
How this started!
There was a meeting about the upcoming millage decision on the November ballot to repair Albion’s roads with basic information given by Albion’s City Manager and other staff. Residents came out and some were discouraged. There was some new information shared about the “cold patches” done at the end of winter to help for a short time and the “hot patches” to potholes that can be done after things warm up which will last much longer.
There was also information about in the long term, with limited funds available, the overall road system will be better if we maintain the roads that are savable now. Then the city will work to get funds to properly repair the roads that can’t be saved so they need to be completely rebuilt. For long-term benefit, even the water mains underneath ought to be fixed too as long as they need to be totally repaired. This is quite expensive. Since Albion lost about 6,000 residents with various entities leaving the city, the sources for road funding need to be reinvented. One source is to pass the road millage this November.
The city officials can’t promote people to vote a certain way, but we encourage residents to vote YES and pass the millage.
Then on Nextdoor.com, some people in Albion were complaining about potholes, and others started to complain about trash. Some people got specific about how other cities have clean-up days. Albion had a clean-up day about 11 years ago when we had some national attention of the favorable type. One Albion resident said something to the effect of “Let’s Do This!” Then more people got involved. We can do something about the litter, together.
We decided to work on this area where people come into Albion at I-94 exit 121. This is across from Mcdonald’s and closer to the Full Moon restaurant. Things were blowing here from all over and stopping at the fence.
Groups participating in the Albion Clean Up for Earth Day include:
- Albion Volunteer Service Organization
- City of Albion
- Citizens to Beautify Albion
- Greater Albion Chamber of Commerce
- Friends of Albion’s Animals
- Albion NAACP
- City of Albion
- The Recorder Newspaper
- Albion Design & Marketing
- More helpers will be listed soon!
Albion Michigan was mentioned on National News for the First Earth Day 1970
Earth Day in Albion Michigan, Walter Cronkite
It was 52 years ago, another time, but not another place. The year was 1970, and Albion, Michigan is recognized on CBS News, national tv by our old-time favorite broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite, for its efforts to work towards a more sustainable future. The story tells of Albion’s population being 14,000 and taking a claim to be “Manufacturing Town USA.” Albion’s population is now 8,534,
